“Hands on head,” said Walter. The man complied immediately. At that point Walter brought the gun down and moved the hammer to rest. If that sound made the man feel better, Walter couldn’t tell because the man’s face was covered by his shirt. It made Walter feel safer. He certainly did not want to shoot someone, in the middle of the night, on the quiet and reserved Heerensgracht. How much attention would that bring? And there was Harry. He didn’t want to wake him.
Walter asked, “Where are you from, Sean Dooley?” The man on the floor mumbled something through his shirt. “Speak up,” said Walter.
“Waterford.”
“Waterford?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Where’s that?”
“Ireland.”
“Right on the River Suir,” came a voice from the hallway at the end of the room. It was Harry Levine. “Waterford, you know, the glass people. Nice town. Very pretty really.”
“I didn’t want to wake you,” Walter said.
“Well, I’m up and look what I find. Somebody, naked, face up on the living room floor. And you’re holding that gun on him.”
“At least you’re in a good mood,” said Walter, then turning his attention back to the naked man on the floor, he asked, “Who are you working for?” Dooley said nothing. “Look Dooley,” Walter said with a sigh, “When I ask a question, you have to answer me. Those are the rules. Otherwise I’ll shoot you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you, Sean?”
“Thirty-one.”
“If you’d like to be thirty-two, you need to know that any inclination you might have to tell me less than what I want to know or to give me information which is less than truthful, could lead to me killing you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” and this time he added, “sir.”
“Then tell me what you are doing here and who sent you.”
Harry found himself much more accepting of the situation than he ever dreamed he would be. Of course, he never dreamed anything like this at all. It was like fishing, he thought. You drop your line and hope for a catch. Only thing was, he wasn’t wading in cool water somewhere along the Chattahoochee River, flicking his rod, tossing his lure way out from shore. He was a world away from a warm spring morning in the north Georgia mountains. To be sure, he was the fish. And it looked like Walter Sherman just caught the fisherman.
Fear gripped Sean Dooley as surely as if he had come face to face with the Devil himself and Beelzebub had thrown him, naked, into Hell’s firestorm. The flames nipped at his dick. Satan’s spear surely awaited him. The anticipation of jagged pain made his stomach churn and he convulsed involuntarily, right there on the floor. Walter had pegged him right. Now he was afraid the Irish pussy might throw up. This Sean Dooley was no more than a regular guy, not a trained operative. Too often, Walter knew, when you use loud aggressive threats with civilians, instead of cooperating they tighten up, harden their resistance as a reaction to the violence they sense is about to come their way. They can’t help it. They instinctually react in a manner inconsistent with their own self-interest. With them, the calm and quiet assertion of authority, coupled with the prospect of impending bodily harm or even death, works much better. Be reasonable, he told himself. They respond to reason. On the other hand, Walter found over the years, pros fell into two groups. The first were people who would die before talking. It was a waste of time to question them. The second bunch often needed a specific sign of what was to come before giving in. They could manage the abstract threat of violence, but not a taste of the real thing. A kick in the groin, a gun barrel shoved up their ass. Something to get their attention. Why they didn’t believe, at the start, in the certainty of their own misfortune was a mystery. One thing was for sure, you could never tell what impulse would make a man willingly give his life rather than surrender information. It was irrational, but what could you do? Sean Dooley talked, and Walter was well enough convinced, after a while, that the Irishman told the truth. How many men had Walter interrogated over the years? More than he could remember. He knew how to ask the same question, in different ways, in unconnected context, to test the truth of the initial answer. Mostly these were simple questions, the kind a regular person, a truthful person, had no time to figure out.
“When did you get to Amsterdam?” Walter asked. Dooley told him he’d just arrived. “You came here straight from the airport?”
“Yes,” he told Walter, “straight from the airport.” A few minutes later, Walter asked, “What time was it when you got off the plane?” The question demanded an immediate answer and he got one. He knew that someone like Sean Dooley would look at his watch as he walked off the plane, leaving the jetway and entering the terminal area. People in a hurry, on a schedule, always do. Dooley gave Walter the right answer. He really had come straight from the airport. How the hell did he know where to go? Walter motioned to Harry pointing at the overcoat on the floor near one of the flamingos. Harry snatched it up. “Check the pockets,” Walter told him. Dooley’s plane ticket was there, one-way from London to Amsterdam. He’d been in Holland less than an hour. Harry pulled something else out too, unfolded it and gasped.
“What is it?” Walter asked.
“My picture,” said Harry.
It was indeed. There, on the page, was a photograph of Harry Levine and underneath it, written in hand- Harry Levine, 310 Heerensgracht, first floor. Amsterdam.
At the top of the page was a fax-generated telephone number-the sender’s number-an American number with an area code Walter didn’t recognize. He looked at Harry.
“Area code 617,” he said. “You know where that is?”
“Boston.”
Walter looked down at the man lying on the floor. “Sean, are you with me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who do you know in Boston?”
“I dunno.”
“Young man,” said Walter, now sounding every bit the genial family doctor. “Tell me who sent you a fax of Harry Levine’s picture or I will step on your balls and crush them into the floor. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir. Please don’t… It was Miss O’Malley. She sent it for me.”
“Who is she?” asked Walter looking over at Harry who shrugged. He had no idea who this Miss O’Malley might be.
“She’s a woman I done some jobs for before. American, but that’s all I know of her. I don’t ask questions.”
“What sort of jobs?”
“You know, just jobs, all kinds of stuff here and there.”
“Tell me about this job.”
“There’s this thing, she called it a document. She said that Harry Levine has it. She wants it.”
“And your job?”
“Get it.”
Sean Dooley was not the brightest light shining from the Emerald Isle. It went on this way-Walter asking a question and Sean giving a short, simple answer-for what seemed to Harry to be a half-hour. Actually it was only a few minutes. Finally, Walter said, “Pull your shirt down.” The Irishman did and for the first time Harry saw his face. Sean Dooley may have been only thirty-one, but he looked like fifty. His Irish mug was both puffy and deeply lined at the same time. Probably the result of a lot of time spent outside, Harry concluded, and a lot of beer drinking when he was indoors.
“Put your pants on. Go ahead, it’s all right.” Dooley pulled his pants up from around his ankles, tucked his shirt halfway in and buckled his belt. He was breathing easier now. Walter thought the vision of his balls ground into the hardwood floor was still very much in Sean Dooley’s mind. “I want you to do two things for me, Sean, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. First, I want you to give Miss O’Malley this number.” He handed the Irishman a small slip of paper. On it was written a telephone number. “You won’t lose it, right?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I won’t lose it.”
“And second-and Sean, listen very carefully because your life depends
on this-I want you to leave Holland, right now, and never come back. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Leave right now. When you walk out of here go straight to the airport. Sleep at Schiphol, if you have to wait before you can get a flight back home.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dooley.
“Here’s the part where you have to listen carefully.” Dooley looked up at Walter from the floor and nodded in a manner that showed Walter he wanted to comply completely and he was eager for Walter to know it. Walter said, “If I ever see you again, I will kill you. Tell Miss O’Malley that if I see anyone else she sends, I will kill them and then, Sean, I’ll come back and kill you too. Even if you’ve done everything I’ve said, I’ll come back for you. Miss O’Malley sent you. If she sends anyone else, you’ll pay too. You have good reason, a powerful incentive to convince Miss O’Malley of my bad intentions.” He waved Dooley’s driver’s license in his face and then tossed it over to Harry. The rest of the wallet he gave back. “I won’t have any trouble finding you, you know that don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” said Walter. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Pack,” said Walter as Harry poured himself a glass of milk.
“What? I beg your pardon. What do you mean?”
“We have to leave. It’s too dangerous here.”
“But you let him go. You threw him out.”
“It’s not him I’m concerned about. Our boy Sean hasn’t been killing anybody. Sir Anthony Wells, and your Ambassador Brown, they were killed by pros, mean ones at that. They were beaten for information. Can you imagine a hundred-year-old man taking that sort of abuse?” Walter stopped for a moment and shook his head. He didn’t have to ask what kind of man would do such a thing. He knew. “We need to get out of here,” he said, looking at the little clock next to the couch. It said 3:20 am.
Ten minutes later, after Walter made two phone calls, a taxi pulled to a halt in front of the building. Walter and Harry walked quickly down the stone steps and into the waiting cab. As they drove off, Walter looked in all directions. He saw no one. He gave the driver specific instructions-“turn here… turn there”-taking them through the empty residential neighborhoods in the Jordan section and then, quickly and unexpectedly, in the opposite direction toward the newly developed part of Amsterdam where clusters of gleaming glass skyscrapers surrounded the Heineken Music Hall. The streets were empty. Nobody followed them. Finally, no longer visibly on edge, Walter leaned forward and said to the cab driver, “Rotterdam.”
Louis Devereaux was angry. Tucker Poesy was pissed. He was talking mostly to himself, but she held the phone to her ear anyway.
“Twice? Jesus fucking Christ! Twice?”
“I…”
“You lost him, again? First you lost him when he was in your apartment?-in your apartment! And now you lose him-again!”
“Look,” she said.
“No! You look…”
“I am not a fucking babysitter!” She was shouting at him. “Do you hear me? I don’t find people. I kill people. You tell me where to go, I go. You tell me who to shoot, I shoot. All the rest of this is bullshit! Now if you have nothing more to say, I’ve got better things to do than chase around Europe after Harry Levine and some psycho named Walter Sherman.”
“They’re not in Europe anymore,” said Devereaux, his boil having quickly receded to little more than a simmer. The total transformation from furious to… calm took Tucker Poesy by surprise.
“What?”
“When I know exactly where he is, I’ll call you.” With that Devereaux hung up.
Years ago, while getting his doctorate in European History at Yale, Devereaux took a Greek History course with an offbeat professor named Yataka Andrews. He remembered him now, after hanging up on Tucker Poesy. Yataka Andrews was a flamboyant character on the New Haven campus. He seemed so old at the time, so grown-up, but he was probably no more than forty, if that. Tall and thin, smooth skinned and handsome, his straight black hair flew about as he shook his head this way and that, all hands and arms, gesturing wildly while he paced about the classroom in jeans and a turtleneck sweater. His mother was Japanese; his father English, rumored to be a Duke or Earl or something like that. Dr. Andrews spoke with a distinct, clipped upper-class British accent. Close your eyes and you heard a Shakespearean actor, English, Irish or Welsh. Open them and you saw a towering Asian. Devereaux recalled a spirited discussion, one afternoon. It centered on Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War .
The thirty-year truce, agreed upon at the conclusion of the conquest of Euboea, was broken in less than half that time when the Thebans invaded Plataea. They massed their forces at the gates to the city, approaching in secret, in the dark of night. The assault was an inside job, facilitated by a Plataean traitor named Naucleides who, thinking he would gain a political advantage after a Theban victory, quite stupidly opened the gate and practically invited them in. Professor Andrews posed the question: “What do you do when the wolf is at your door?” Obviously, this had implications well beyond the Greeks. The discussion was wide-ranging, covering wars, and threats of wars, from ancient Greece to Vietnam. Agreement within the class was hard to come by. Plataea was pushed to the background, forgotten in the heat of the moment by some. Finally, one student said, “When the wolf is at your door, it’s best to have a big gun.” A funny comment, of course, since, as Dr. Andrews was quick to point out, neither the Thebans nor the Plataeans had explosives of any kind. But the point was made. In the face of a threat, mighty force was the best defense. “No,” said Yataka Andrews, dashing up the aisle of sitting students, jumping, standing like a colossus on an empty desk in the back row. They all turned to see him. “That is not the answer,” he said. “Nor is it the meaning of the lesson. It was not for the Greeks to answer this question. Hardly. It was-” He paused momentarily for effect, then nearly leaped to the front of the class, turned to look at his students and announced, “It was Joseph Stalin who said, ‘When the wolf is at your door, you need a better place to hide.’ ”
Breaking through his anger with The Bambino, decades later, Devereaux heard it all again, the sonorous tones of Yataka Andrews reciting the words of the Soviet tyrant. It rang in his ears- “a better place to hide.” Of course. That’s where Walter Sherman was headed, to a better place to hide. Devereaux smiled. He couldn’t help but also remember that the Plataeans, despite the surprise advantage of their attackers, had routed the Thebans in their pre-dawn battle. They fought furiously with wild abandon, men, women and children. Even the slaves fought against the invaders. Better the master you know than the one you don’t.
Devereaux knew what lay ahead for Harry Levine, for the Lacey Confession, for The Locator. He just didn’t know the fine details. No matter, he was sure of the outcome. He poured himself a cup of tea, tore off a chunk of the French bread that lay on the kitchen tile next to the stove, and picked up the phone again. This time he called his old friend Abby O’Malley. After a minimum of small talk-they were truly glad to hear each other’s voice-Devereaux said, “I’m on it, Abby. I was close, and missed, but I’ll have it soon.”
“You mean… Lacey?”
“Lacey. I’ve got a man working it as we speak. Actually, he doesn’t exactly work for me, but he works for me, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I do,” said Abby. “I certainly do, Louis.”
“His name is Sherman, Walter Sherman. I’m positive he’s got Levine-and the document. I thought we had him in Holland, but he’s out now. We’ll find him again.”
“Walter Sherman?” she said, quite openly amused. “I thought we had him in Holland, too. But it’s okay, Louis. Really it is.” Abby O’Malley was laughing now, a gentle laugh meant for an old friend, with no hint of mean spirit.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“I have his cell phone number,” she said. “He left it for me.” And now they both laughed.
They slept most of t
he way to Juarez. The last road sign Harry saw said Torreon. He never heard of it and had no idea where he was. The sign next to it had an arrow pointing right. Monterrey, 382 km. Well, at least he’d heard of Monterrey. What was 382 kilometers? About 250 miles? Something like that. Harry thought back to when Walter first said they were taking a bus. Why? He knew it was easily a thousand miles from Mexico City to Ciudad Juarez, a thousand miles to Texas. In Harry’s mind, he was certain a Mexican bus meant a rickety, old half-truck, sputtering its way along dirt roads, luggage loaded on the roof. He pictured old men, Indians no doubt, chewing something vile, spitting on the floor, and behind them, sullen-faced fat women surrounded by chickens. He remembered Turkey and especially Egypt. Could Mexico match what went for public transportation on the outskirts south of Cairo? Of course, he was wrong about Mexico. This bus turned out to be an ultra-modern vehicle, air conditioned, complete with comfortable tilt-back seats equipped with headphones offering a selection of music channels, clean restrooms, even a cold drink machine, and easy-on-the-eye recessed lighting. You could sleep or you could eat or you could read without invading the privacy of the person next to you.
Harry had no idea what lay at the end of their journey or where that might be. Walter told him things one step at a time. By now, Harry could hardly remember what day it was. Just because it was sunny didn’t mean it was daytime. Not for his body clock. In Rotterdam-when was that, yesterday? Or the day before?-they took a train to Brussels. They had breakfast there, in the train station, Harry remembered. Walter had even made a joke, a bad joke about Belgian waffles. Then they cabbed to the airport where, just before eight o’clock, they took an Iberia flight to Madrid. After Rotterdam, everything was waiting for them. Arrangements had been made. Probably the Dutchman, Aat van de Steen, Harry thought. They stopped only to pick up tickets. Walter knew just where to go and what to ask for when he got there. In Madrid they made their way to The Palace Hotel, ornate, elegant, the domed lobby perhaps the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Harry tagged along as Walter walked up to the desk and announced himself. It was not yet eleven in the morning. Their rooms, Harry figured, would not be available for hours. Then it struck him-arrangements had been made. The desk clerk handed Walter a key and minutes later they were shown to a suite overlooking the plaza. As the bellhop swung open the high, double-door windows, Harry saw the Ritz facing them across the busy plaza below. When they were finally alone, Walter pointed toward a bedroom down the hall.
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